


snowday

by OceanMyth



Series: Ocean's ATLA Drabbles, Oneshots, and Ficlets [15]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Fluff, Gen, a boy and his sky-bison, aang is like 7 here tops, baby!Aang, baby!Appa, not-scientifically-accurate premise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanMyth/pseuds/OceanMyth
Summary: Appa's first time in the snow.
Relationships: Aang & Appa (Avatar), Aang & Gyatso (Avatar)
Series: Ocean's ATLA Drabbles, Oneshots, and Ficlets [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2113209
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43





	snowday

**Author's Note:**

> I realize that this is not how climate works. Mountains can, in fact, get snow in tropical regions, and thus Appa has likely experienced snow before bonding with Aang. But for the time being I will ignore common sense because this idea was _*hella*_ cute and I wish to share it with people. Nothing like 1000 words of self-indulgence.

Aang is thrilled when the clouds roll in. 

Autumn is the  _ best  _ season of the year, but it does start to get long once all the leaves have fallen, and the grass has yellowed and died, when the nights are cold and the days are rainy and dark. It’s still nice—autumn is a time of change, and seeing it fade is half the fun—but there’s a big reason that he's excited for winter this year. One which just headbutted him into a pile of hay.

Appa whuffles, and Aang laughs as he brushes the little bits of hay off his clothes.

"No  _ really _ , it's lots of fun, even though it’s cold! There's lots of different kinds of it too, and all the different kinds are super fun! Sometimes it's sticky and you can build stuff with it, sometimes it's powdery, and you can go sledding or snow-surfing with your glider—well I guess you can't snow-surf buddy, but we can figure out a way to go sledding together! I promise." Appa snorts and presses his head against Aang, more gently than the last time he did it, and Aang stretches his arms as wide as he can to give his friend a hug.

“We’re gonna have so much fun!”

There is a creaking behind him, and he whips around, stumbling back against Appa. Gyatso stands in the doorway, a look of moderate disapproval on his face. Aang winces. He was supposed to be in bed—curfew had been hours ago.

“Pupil Aang,” Gyatso says, and Aang rubs the back of his head. His cheeks are really warm, and he can’t seem to meet his teacher’s eyes. He swallows. “You should be in bed.”

“Uh,” Aang ventures a look at Gyatso, who has one eyebrow raised. “Actually, I was  _ just  _ headed to bed— I really should be going,” Aang tries to slip out the front doors of the bison stable, only for Gyatso to catch him by the back of his shirt as he slides past.

“I understand that you are excited about the snow tomorrow, Aang. But if you don’t get any sleep, you’ll hardly be awake enough to play with Appa.” Gyatso smiles, and his grip on Aang’s shirt turns into an arm slung around his shoulders. Aang returns Gyatso’s smile, and together they leave the stables.

  
  
Though not before Aang tugs himself free of Gyatso’s grip and dashes back for a second— he just had to give Appa _one last hug_.

He doesn’t sleep that night. He had originally gone to visit Appa because he couldn’t sleep, and being returned to his bed didn’t help with his restlessness. As it turned out, most of the other boys weren’t sleeping, and had taken to bending their whispers to each other in order to avoid the monks overhearing. So Aang spends the rest of the night busy making plans for tomorrow, bending ideas and dreams out the window to the other boys, trying to keep his laughter quiet at their responses. 

The next day dawns as cloudy as the day before. The clouds haven’t followed through on their promise yet, but Aang and all the other students can feel it prickling across their skin. The monks let them leave lessons early, since none of them can pay any attention to what is being taught, though they insist that all the chores need to be done before anyone gets to play.

Aang rushes through his chores. He’s normally one of the faster students to be done— his duties have always felt familiar, and that makes everything go more smoothly— but today he finishes alongside even the slowest of the other students. Everyone is excited to be outside when the snow finally comes.

  
  
By the time he’s finished, and sprinting down to the bison stables, the first large downy flakes are drifting from the sky. He doesn’t really _open_ the doors, instead blowing them open with a blast of air, and skittering to a stop in front of Appa’s stall.

  
  
“Appa! It’s happening, c’mon!” Appa looks at him with lazy half-lidded eyes, while Aang opens the door and tries to push his friend out of his stall. 

Appa doesn’t budge at all. Aang can’t see Appa’s eyes roll since he’s behind him and trying to push him out the door, but from the whuffling sigh and the way Appa begrudgingly starts to move, he knows Appa had rolled his eyes with all the sass his seven hundred pound bison body could muster. Which is a lot, despite sky-bison not typically being very sassy creatures.

Appa stops dead in the doorway, right before they get outside. Aang edges around his friend, not sure why Appa stopped.

In general, it can be hard to tell what a bison is thinking. They don’t have the same facial features as people, and even though the bond between Air Nomad and Sky Bison is useful for understanding your companion, it doesn’t work well if they aren’t saying anything. And Appa is standing still and silent, and Aang really can’t tell what is going on, as he squishes himself through the gap between Appa and the doorframe.

When Aang finally stumbles out into the yard, he understands. Appa’s head is tilted towards the sky, and he’s staring, unblinking, into the swirls of white and grey. A large flake drifts down to land on his wet nose, and Appa twitches backwards. His eyes are wide. His nose flares, each puff of air creating a cloud of fog.

Appa huffs, and blows a swirl of snow through the air.

He pokes out his tongue, and a single sparkling flake catches on it. Melts. His eyes get even rounder. Appa blinks, and Aang jumps up onto his friend's head in time to avoid getting bowled over. 

“See! I told you it would be fun!” Aang shouts, and his words are being torn away by the wind, and they are flying through the swirls of white.

Aang has never heard a sky-bison laugh before—Appa prefers to express his amusement through disdain and eyerolls, and he hasn’t really had the chance to get to know any other sky-bison— but he knows that’s what his best friend is doing now.

Aang is always happy to laugh with his friends.


End file.
